Last
month Jeanne of the Bristol
Public Library offered a few thoughts on mystery
pet peeves. Today she offers her thoughts on the issue of animal deaths in
mysteries. Like Jeanne, I have noticed the complaints over animal deaths in
mysteries as well as the role of social media in spreading pictures of things
that most do not want to ever see. Unlike Jeanne, not only have I seen the
animal stuff, I do have a reference for someone killed by gunshot as well as
one by stabbing. Is that why animal deaths do not bother me more than human
deaths? I have no idea. I have some thoughts on this topic myself so down the
road a bit I may offer them. In the meantime, consider what Jeanne has to say
and feel free to continue the conversation in the comments…
On the mystery list DorothyL, readers will occasionally
complain about the death of an animal in a book. Some authors will respond by bemoaning
readers who get upset when an animal is killed.
They’ve had editors ask them to take out an animal’s death, otherwise
the books won’t sell to the cozy readers. In an issue of Mystery Scene Magazine a
couple of years back, author Joanna Carl wrote an essay entitled “Death
of a Furry Animal.” She described reader displeasure with the animal
deaths, including an unpleasant encounter a fellow author had with a reader
over the death of a feral cat. She deliberately wrote in a death scene of a
rattlesnake to see if that would cause reader ire but no one mentioned it,
drawing the conclusion that it’s only furry and cute animals whose deaths spark
controversy.
So why do
readers get so upset about the death of a pet in a mystery? As authors have pointed out, people are
getting murdered left and right, but if an animal dies the author will never
hear the end of it. Why is that?
Obviously I don’t have THE answer to this burning
question, but I do have some answers, at least as far as I’m concerned.
Yes, I’m afraid I’m one of those people who doesn’t
like it when an animal dies. I have refused to read books because I know an
animal dies.
When I’m reading about someone killed by a gunshot
or dying of cyanide poisoning, I don’t (thank God!) have a frame of reference
for that. And if I don’t want to read
about death agonies or explicit descriptions of dismemberment, I simply skip
those parts. I don’t have any immediate, visceral images to shock me.
With animals, I do. Like it or not, I’ve seen
injured and abused animals. There’s the
dog tied in the back yard with its ribs showing because its owners aren’t home
enough to know it has no food or water.
There’s the cat with only one eye because someone kicked it in the head
so hard the eyeball ruptured. There’s
the deer hit by car trying desperately to get to its feet, its eyes rolling
wildly in terror. Even dead animals evoke a reaction: there’s always a catch of
breath when I spy some bundle of fur on the highway, be it possum or rabbit.
And with the advent of the internet and social
media, it’s even harder to avoid.
There’s the guy who posted a video of him throwing scalding water on a
cat. There’s the dog beaten and thrown
in the garbage. There’s –well, anyone on
social media has a litany of abused animals.
It’s to the point where some people have requesting folks NOT post such
pictures not only because it upsets people but because it may give abusers new
ideas.
So when an author writes about a dead animal, I can easily
visualize the scene without trying. It
doesn’t do any good to skip the description because I’ve seen enough that my
mind fills in the blanks.
Saying that the dog or cat is a stray and not a
beloved pet doesn’t really help because many of my pets have started out as
strays. One of the loves of my life showed up as a tattered, toothless orange
tabby who settled in my yard because he was too weak to go further.
When asked about an animal death, authors tend to
respond with some variation of it’s needed to show how ruthless the murderer
is, or to ratchet up tension. That is
certainly one way to do it. Is it the
only way? That’s a question only the
author can answer, but I will add that Sharon Bolton once terrified me with the
appearance of a pine cone. That takes talent.
In the interest of full disclosure, I will say that I
have indeed given up on reading some authors whose books have animal deaths. One I have kept reading but I read warily,
withholding most emotional involvement. Fool me once….
If an author feels that the death of an animal is crucial to the book, then that’s what
should be written. I’m not here to tell
anyone what to write; but I reserve the right not to read a book I will find
upsetting.
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